Racing and rowing shells are often provided with a removable rowing apparatus commonly comprising a base having a track, a seat slidable fore and aft on the track and a pair of riggers extending from the base out over the gunnels of the shell, with oar locks being mounted on the ends of the riggers. Numerous similar devices have been devised to insert within or attach to canoes, boats or other shells to convert those boats to rowing boats, the attachments providing a rowing seat or seats, sometimes footrests and some mechanisms for oar locks for the rowing user.
Generally, these devices involve supporting structures that rest on frames upon the bottom of the canoe or other boat and thus require the securing of the frame to the boat bottom in some manner. The "Oar Master" attachment for a sliding seat described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,898,950 and on page 38 of Rowing, U.S.A., August, 1983, is such a device with outrigger wings or arms for stabilizing purposes and for carrying the oarlocks and with the free ends laterally extending to the wings. A difficulty with such a form of stabilizing is the necessity for securing the support frame to the bottom of the boat and the instability in the freely extending outrigger wings.
Similarly the rowing rig as described in the 1982 catalogue of Mad River Canoe Company, Waitsfield, Vt., attaches to the canoe by means of aluminum beams expanded and secured into the hull of the canoe by pins, the pins remaining permanently affixed to the canoe. Additionally, this rowing rig device has no stabilizing mechanism.
Another example is the sculling attachment for canoes described in the November, 1983 brochure of Silver Fox, New Smyma Beach, Fla., where rubber strips are cemented to the bottom of the boat and the rowing device attachment is placed thereupon. Similar constructions, again requiring a permanent securing mechanism are described in the ReGrahm Corporation, Orange, Calif. flier of the "Trimline."
The present invention, on the other hand, entirely eliminates the need for permanent attachment to the bottom or sides of a canoe, skiff, boat or shell or the like, as well as any requirement whatsoever for the permanent attaching devices such as rubber strips, pins or other special mechanisms associated with the installation of prior devices. In addition, with the present invention, considerable structural integrity and stability are imparted to outrigger wing attachments and to the canoe or other boat itself, both for securing the attachment in place in the boat and for providing improved structural integrity of the outrigger wing structure. The present invention is also capable of supporting both fixed and slidable seats, which are movable during rowing as in sculling, and may be adapted for multiple seats to accommodate a plurality of rowers, if desired.
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved rowing attachment for a canoe or similar boat that shall not be subject to the above-described limitations of prior systems, but that, to the contrary, enables installation in a canoe or similar boat without requiring the installation of permanent attachment or supporting means.
A further object is to provide such a novel rowing apparatus that provides considerable structural integrity and stability to the outrigger wing attachments of the rowing attachment and to the canoe itself.
An additional object is to provide a rowing apparatus that can support single or multiple seats that may be either fixed or slidable during rowing.
Other and further objects are explained hereinafter and are more particularly delineated in the appended claims.